


The Stars Are But A Current-Prologue

by SaturnineArbiter



Series: The Stars Are But A Current [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Space, Artificial Intelligence, Gen, Playing fast and loose with characterization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 15:06:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10440531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaturnineArbiter/pseuds/SaturnineArbiter
Summary: Sollux Captor still seethes with hurt after the death of Aradia Megido, his long-time matesprit and near-handfast. His plan to avoid her robotic reincarnation is foiled when the enigmatic and dangerous Crocker family call on them for a mission to Deadspace, far from any civilization, whether human or troll.Together with their siblings Damara and Mituna, they begin to uncover secrets that someone would rather keep buried—someone who kills Sollux. Furious and frightened, they work to uncover everything and learn the truth. The unravelling leads to a web of conspiracies bigger than any of them could have imagined.And their mission turns into a quest that threatens not only human and troll societies alike, but the universe as a whole.Just the prologue of this series- it doesn't have much to do with the plot until later on and doesn't need to be read to understand the rest.





	

Jane climbed out of her seat, feeling a little dizzy and more than a little like she’d like to lie down.

“You okay, Janey?” Roxy asked, leaning half-out of her seat to look at her. “You’re hot as always, but a little less hot than normal, if you catch my drift.”

“I do.” Jane said stiffly. “I’m perfectly well! Now, where is this thing you just had to show me?”

“Oh! Over here!” Roxy gushed. “You’ll love it!”

Jane didn’t doubt it, but still dallied a little behind her friend. It wasn’t Roxy’s fault, not at all; she was just… not feeling well. She wasn’t at her best, and wouldn’t be for the rest of the week. She could only hope that Roxy didn’t take it to heart.

Roxy skipped down the halls, waiting only just long enough for Jane to catch up at each corner. They’d long passed the point where Roxy complained about how slow Jane was in comparison.

“So, where’s your surprise?” Jane asked as they entered a larger room still empty of any of Roxy’s siblings. “And do your parents know about this?”

“Rue won’t care!” Roxy shouted. “Oh, Janey, it’s okay, we won’t get into trouble!”

“I’m certain,” Jane said dryly.

“Here we are, look!”

Jane waited a moment, then let out a long groan. “Roxy, what are you asking me to look at?”

“See? The screen—oh, shit, sorry!” Roxy toyed with something that made a few clicking sounds, and moments later Jane looked through Roxy’s eyes at a massive screen.

“Roxy,” Jane said. “You know you’re not supposed to share sensory data with me.”

“Shh, don’t tell and we won’t get into trouble.” Roxy giggled a little. “But here—now look.”

Jane, obligingly, turned her awareness back to the light of the screen, now orange and glowing faintly. “Roxy, what is it?”

“Activate,” Roxy commanded. “Okay, so Rue and Dante were off on a _thing_ —you know, a _thing_ thing—and they bumped into an escape pod from—from guess where?”

“Where?” Jane asked, a feeling of curiosity emerging despite herself. This was Lalonde business, Roxy shouldn’t even have told her Rue and Dante had gone off somewhere—but this was a mystery. Jane _had_ to know now.

“The _Terranova,_ ” Roxy said in a hushed whisper. Jane suddenly understood her friend’s need for secrecy and at the same time her need to confide in someone. A relic of the Terranova—things like that didn’t just fall out of the sky from nowhere! Except when they did, and then they only caused problems like nobody’s business.

“Who was in it?” Jane asked, a feeling of creeping dread running up her spine. “Was it a crewmember or—”

“No one was in it!” Roxy announced. “No one! It ejected _on its own!_ ”

 _Oh, Māho, no,_ Jane thought, but edged forwards nonetheless. “Oh, Roxy, did it have a message? Did it say what happened?”

“No.” Roxy whispered. “No, it—had—just—this.” With that, she brought her hands together in front of her face so that Jane could see them, sending a reverberating clap through the room. The screen twisted and made a fizzing noise, light fountaining down from a miniaturized projector, and a stylized-but-recognizable humanoid figure appeared on the ground.

“Hello there, ladies,” it said with a wink. Jane bit her tongue and seized Roxy’s arm, dragging her back from the computer.

“Roxy,” she hissed.

“Hiya, Hal!” Roxy waved. “See, Janey? It’s Bro’s artificial intelligence, the one he built off of his personality.”

“Oh.” Jane managed a brittle smile of her own, waving at Hal. Hal shot her a blinding grin.

“Heya, darling, about time I saw someone I wasn’t related to.”

It wasn’t _stupid_ , Jane knew. This only meant that Roxy trusted it—and too much! She shouldn’t have brought Jane in until her family was done evaluating it. _Especially since_ Jane was who she was—and Hal would recognize her, too, as one of the people who had the most unfinished business aboard the Terranova that anyone could.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Jane said primly, already scheming her way out of the room. “How has your recovery been?”

“Still got a few gaps here and there, but gettin’ pretty close to being all the way back to perfection.” Hal knocked itself on the skull once and stuck its hands into its pockets, shrugging in a gesture familiar to Jane from watching Dirk interact with his aunt and mother. “You, doll?”

“I’m doing well. Roxy?”

“Doing great!” Roxy flashed Hal a thumbs-up. “I can’t keep you up for more than, like, a few seconds more, though, so got anything to say?”

“Hmm.” Hal put a finger to its chin in mock-seriousness. “Be careful? Don’t eat the yellow snow? Have a bite to eat before going to a feast? Try not to be foolish organic life forms—aspire more to godhood?”

Roxy snorted. “Sorta sunk on that one, Hal.”

“Not _my_ fault you eschew perfection.” Hal sighed dramatically. “Alright, shut me off, goodbye.”

“Goodbye.” Jane said to the screen as it winked off and she found herself back in her own body, no longer hijacking Roxy’s senses.

“Isn’t he awesome?” Roxy gushed. “The last relic Bro left behind, the last anything Bro left behind, the closest thing we could do to having Bro back!”

“It seemed rather more excitable than your elder brother.” Jane said, trying to calm her pulse. “I’m not sure Dirk would appreciate the comparison.”

“Dirk can shove it,” Roxy said, voice muffling in a way that meant she’d probably stuck out her tongue. “Maybe he is, but he’s great anyways. We’re trying to see if we can recover far enough to learn about Colamér and what happened on the Terranova.”

“You mean, how Harley survived.” Jane translated. “Aren’t there… better ways?”

“Better ways? Than what?” Roxy sounded a little affronted, but Jane liked to think she knew her well enough to recognize it as joking. “You make it sound like you don’t think Hal’s reliable.”

“I’m sure it is.” Jane reassured her. “I just think… never mind. Do you want to… play something? Back at your quarters. I’ve got a while before Dad expects me back.”

“That’s great!” Roxy said, brightening. “You haven’t been over for a while, Janey, Mom’s been remodeling, it’s really cool! Just wait until we have Hal back up and running and we can install him throughout the ship again!”

“That’ll be amazing.” Jane agreed, following Roxy back into the hall. _Not that I’ll ever again let myself get close enough to see it happen._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
